The making of Family Finance

Family Finance readers make the story

Family Finance, a weekly column in the personal finance section of the Financial Post and Postmedia newspapers across the country, aims to analyze a range of financial issues and situations. But not all of our readers approve of how we do our work.

In hundreds of letters to Family Finance requesting assistance and commenting on the problems folks face in paying their bills, 10 top issues emerged. Continue reading.

“I am anticipating the day when hell freezes over and one of your financial gurus addresses financial situations that are for real people,” wrote a critic of Family Finance, posting his comments on the FP personal finance website.

The question is a common thread in our email messages and Web comments: Why don’t you look at real problems of lower-income people who really need free financial advice.

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For the record, the after-tax income of about 50% of those who ask for our help is in a range of $58,500 to $65,000 for families with two parents working and $45,000 to $55,000 for single people seeking our help. About 30% have incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 a year.

We hear from a few people, about 5% of inquiries, with incomes over $200,000. And 15% have incomes below $35,000 a year. So the vast majority of the 40 inquiries or so we receive every week fall between $58,500 and $200,000 a year.

We take on few cases of folks with incomes over $200,000 since, at that level, people can likely afford accountants and portfolio managers.

Those on the lower end of the scale also often fall off before reaching the final stages of our analysis because for many there is just no constructive advice on debt management and investment solutions to be offered. When money is so tight, there is little room for creativity and finessing financial plans.

But we want to hear from people in every life circumstance, we will look at every situation presented to us and when we feel we can offer constructive, useful guidance, we will do an in-depth analysis. Email andrewallentuck@mts.net for more information.

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